


That one time Connor accidentally fell into an anomaly

by petrification



Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 05:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petrification/pseuds/petrification
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Him and today clearly wasn't meant to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That one time Connor accidentally fell into an anomaly

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you fififolle for beta reading this and helping me with all my questions. I appreciate it. Ditzy belongs to fredbassett.

Connor rolled onto his side, burrowed his head in the pillow and waited for the horrid beeping of his alarm clock to start. When it never did, he pried his eyes open, looked in the direction of the clock, and groaned aloud. Its hands were standing still. No wonder it didn't start. He could probably have predicted that, he thought mournfully, never having changed the batteries since he got it at a flea market a year before. Until today, it had served him well.

He would have gone back to dozing, but something nagged at the back of his mind and Connor forced himself into full awareness. Something was not quite right.

Pulling the duvet aside, he sat up and lowered his feet to the thick carpet. Sitting still for a moment he listened, but the flat was eerily quiet. He couldn't hear any noise from the coffee machine warming up in the kitchen. There was no smell of freshly ground coffee beans drifting into his room and most of all no sound of Lester noisily turning the pages on the day's newspaper.

Which lead Connor to confirm his growing suspicion. Lester was gone and he was going to be late.

Normally Lester would make sure that he would get up.

Since he had moved into the flat, they had developed a routine. Connor would wake right before his alarm, ignore it and then Lester would come knocking on the bedroom door, telling him to hurry up. Even on the days he slept through, he could always count on Lester being his personal wake up call.

This must have been some kind of revenge for what had happened yesterday when they had come home. But really, how could he have known that Sid would eat Lester's favourite slippers? On the other hand, he possibly shouldn't have laughed and told Lester that Sid was just hungry.

Connor put on a pair of jeans and picked a T-shirt off the floor. He gave it a quick sniff, deeming it clean enough before pulling it over his head.

Locating his mobile under a small pile of comics he had read last night, he looked at the time.

That was not good. He was supposed to have met Cutter fifteen minutes ago to discuss the anomaly that kept showing up in the Forest of Dean. It always showed up at the same time. Sometimes only for a split second, whoever was on guard only just catching a brief flash out of the corner of their eye. Sometimes it stayed longer, but never more than half a minute. No one had gone through it yet. Lester hadn't allowed it, declaring it unsafe and too unstable.

Given that Lester had left home already, he had to take the Tube. He didn't really mind it, it was just that he had got used to the luxury of Lester driving them to and from work, especially on days with awful weather like this.

He looked despairingly at the raindrops hitting the window and wondered if he should just stay in bed and pretend that morning hadn't come, since him and today clearly wasn’t meant to be.

Slipping into his shoes and picking up his jacket Connor made his way into the bathroom to check on Sid and Nancy. Lester had been quite insistent on them staying in the bathroom at night to make sure that they didn't have their way with any more of his things.

"Hi guys," he said quietly while giving Nancy a small pat on the head as she nearly knocked him over in her enthusiasm to see him.

Remarkably, Connor saw that they hadn't even touched the toilet paper. It seemed that Lester could strike fear into everyone, even Diictodons.

-

Arriving at the ARC soaking wet wasn't exactly ideal, neither was not having some clean clothing in his locker he could change into.

The small black umbrella he had found in Lester's hallway hadn't been much help. The strong wind had pulled it from side to side and he'd had a hard time holding it somewhat still so that he was sheltered from the rain. Then right around the corner from the ARC a guest of wind had blown grit into his eyes, momentarily blinding him and making him lose his grip on the umbrella. It had tumbled to the ground hard and by the time he could see again and his eyes had stopped itching it was already too late. He was drenched and the umbrella was useless. Its metal ribs had broken off.

That was how Connor found himself in the men's room, his hands holding his shirt out from his body, as he desperately and quickly tried to dry the last of the wet patches under the hand dryer before anyone came in.

But somebody very high up must have hated him today, because right in that moment, someone did open the door.

That someone being Ditzy.

Connor could just imagine what he must have looked like, standing there in only his boxer shorts and shirt with his eyes red and irritated from the encounter with the grit.

He had left his jeans on the counter right under the room's second hand dryer, hoping to be faster and more effective.

"It’s raining today," Connor said over the noise of the dryer, while awkwardly reaching for his jeans. "So I was just - I got a bit wet," he explained further, giving Ditzy a small self-conscious smile.

"I didn’t notice," Ditzy commented sarcastically and then he stopped abruptly just inside the door, staring at Connor as if he had never seen him before.

A few silent seconds ticked by, making Connor feel even more uncomfortable. Why wasn’t Ditzy moving?

"You know what? I'm all dry. Good as new," Connor told Ditzy as he hurriedly pulled on his jeans and took his shoes under his arm. He tried giving Ditzy a smile as he edged around him out the door, but it ended up being more like a small grimace.

-

When he failed to find Cutter in his office, Connor decided to get some work done on the Anomaly Detection Device. He had some upgrades he had been hoping to install for some time and he'd promised Lester that he would try to cut off that one particular Forest of Dean anomaly, so the alarms didn't start blaring every time it showed up. Giving that anomaly had been granted twenty-four hour guards just in case anything deadly came through, there really wasn't much need for the alarm for that one.

When he reached the ADD, he stopped abruptly and stared. A mug of tea was sitting on the desk, placed right in front of the keyboard, and a small curl of heat was dancing slowly up over the rim.

He turned to Stephen who was the only one in close proximity to him.

"Is this yours?" Connor asked, pointing to the mug.

"Hmm, no," Stephen replied, sounding distracted, then continued, "You were supposed to meet with Cutter, right? Have you seen him? I've been trying to find him for an hour."

Connor just shook his head, watching as Stephen abruptly walked off, possibly continuing in his quest to find the professor.

Looking around suspiciously, he tried to find whoever was responsible, but no one was looking in his or the tea's direction, to somehow signal that it was theirs. People knew not to leave anything near the ADD, especially not something that could cause it harm if not handled properly. It was an unspoken rule that this was his space and no one else was allowed to invade it. Unless it was an emergency, or he needed help, or if he was out in the field and it required someone else keeping watch, but really, it was his space.

Looking down at the mug, the only conclusion he could come to was that Abby must be in a good mood and had left it for him, even though she had never done so before.

-

It had been a little over a week since the first mug had showed up and each day when Connor made it into the ARC, a mug of freshly brewed tea would always be waiting for him. On the first day, he had thanked Abby, only to get a puzzled look in return. She hadn’t commented and Connor wouldn’t be surprised if she had quickly filed it away as a 'Connor being weird' thing.

One day he had showed up early hoping to catch the person in the act, but the tea was already waiting for him. It was as if the person somehow knew he was coming and Connor couldn't help but feel a bit paranoid about it.

He had tried to ask Becker once if he had seen anything while he was standing guard. He had received a 'no' in reply but Connor swore he saw amusement in Becker's eyes.

He had even checked the security cameras, but nothing. Whoever was bringing him tea was clearly clever. Even though it was easy to see that someone had been disrupting the security footage since he knew what to look for, he never saw a shadow of the person on the video. One moment the desk would be empty and in the next, the tea had showed up. If he had randomly been looking through the footage, he would have missed it. There was no flicker, not even a hint of static or pause to indicate a new frame and the time was constant. The person was obviously professional and knew their way around technology. That didn't help Connor narrow it down very much to who the person could be. Half of the people working in the ARC had jobs requiring knowledge when it came to technology.

However, today, unlike the other days, it wasn't just the tea waiting for him on the desk, a small brown paper bag was placed neatly beside the mug.

Connor approached a bit cautiously and as he reached a hand out to pick up the bag, he could feel eyes on him. A sudden chill ran up his spine and goose bumps broke out on his arms, but a look around confirmed that no one was watching.

Looking inside the bag, Connor saw it was a brownie with a sprinkle of finely chopped nuts lying on top.

Taking it out and placing it on the bag he poked the brownie carefully with his finger, as if somehow expecting it to be something else wrapped in chocolate. All he managed to do was to smear glaze on his finger and leave a massive fingerprint in it. For a quick moment, he speculated if it was some elaborate scam to lure him into false security with the tea and then poison him with cake. Although it didn't seem like the plan of an evil mastermind and really who would poison a delicious chocolate brownie?

He took a bite.

-

Abby had laughed at him. Actually so had Stephen, Cutter and Danny. He was sure the soldiers had laughed at him too, though their faces didn't show it. Connor didn't really blame them. It probably had looked very amusing when the big mammoth-looking animal had decided to sneeze on him. Twice.

Connor hadn't felt very amused when it had happened and he still didn't. He was covered in green slime -he refused to think of it as anything other than slime since some of it had got into his mouth.

The good thing was that it didn't have any serious consequence other than making him smell horribly, like rotten cabbage.

He looked sadly at his favorite Star Wars t-shirt, which had taken most of the impact, before placing it gently in a plastic bag. Connor wondered if multiple washings would ever get the smell out.

"You can borrow these," a voice said from behind him, making him jump. He whirled around, almost losing his footing in the process to find Ditzy standing rather close. He hadn't even heard him come into the locker room. Then he looked down to see what he was offering.

"Oh. Thank you," Connor said, and smiled tentatively at Ditzy before reaching out to take the well-worn t-shirt and a pair of soft grey sweatpants.

He could feel Ditzy's eyes on his chest and Connor knew he must have looked disgusting. The slime was slowly drying out creating a crust on his skin and by now Connor was itching for a hot shower.

When Ditzy slowly reached out a hand to touch the slime, Connor flinched back a bit.

"No, don’t –" he uttered in warning while taking a step backwards, out of Ditzy's reach. He hoped Ditzy hadn't got any slime on his hand, it was really quite foul.

"Right," Ditzy said, letting his hand fall down to his side, his eyes suddenly going cold.  
Nodding rather abruptly, he turned and left the locker room.

Connor looked after Ditzy a bit dumbfounded. Was it something he said? And why would Ditzy want to touch the slime anyway? He suddenly felt like he had missed something important, if only he could figure out what it was.


End file.
